Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl loses sponsorship

A week after Tostitos ended its sponsorship of the Fiesta Bowl, the Valley's other postseason game — until recently known as the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl — also now is without an official sponsor.

The Michigan Wolverines take the field against the Kansas State Wildcats for the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl NCAA football game on Saturday, Dec. 28, 2013 in Tempe. The restaurant chain will not sponsor the game in 2014. It will be called the Cactus Bowl.(Photo: David Kadlubowski/The Republic)

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The Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant chain and the Fiesta Bowl organization ended negotiations over sponsorship of the Valley's junior college football bowl game.

The bowl is legally known as the Valley of the Sun Bowl, but Mike Nealy, Fiesta Bowl executive director, said he hopes for a long-term sponsorship deal.

Before Buffalo Wild Wings, the game was known as the Insight Bowl, sponsored by Tempe computer retailer Insight Enterprises.

Make that two college-football bowl games in the Valley without an official name.

A week after Tostitos ended its sponsorship of the Fiesta Bowl, the Valley's other postseason game — until recently known as the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl — is also now without an official sponsor.

Negotiations between the latter bowl, which is owned by the Fiesta Bowl, and the restaurant chain ended recently, said Mike Nealy, the Fiesta Bowl's new executive director.

"It's not ideal that we don't have a sponsor right now, but I look at it as an opportunity," said Nealy, the former president and chief operating officer of the Phoenix Coyotes. Nealy took over with the Fiesta Bowl early last month.

The junior bowl is legally known as the Valley of the Sun Bowl, but Nealy said he hopes for a long-term sponsorship deal that could highlight the game's connection to the Phoenix metro area or Arizona. Before Buffalo Wild Wings, the game was known as the Insight Bowl, sponsored by Tempe computer retailer Insight Enterprises. Earlier, when the game was based in Tucson, it was called the Copper Bowl.

Last year, the game was played at Sun Devil Stadium.

The Fiesta Bowl organization is directly negotiating with potential sponsors for the smaller bowl, but it doesn't have a role in naming the Fiesta Bowl for the coming season. The Fiesta Bowl is one of the premier college-football postseason games, and its naming rights are held by broadcaster ESPN, which didn't immediately respond to an inquiry for this article.

Tostitos, a brand of PepsiCo division Frito-Lay, last week ended its relationship with the Fiesta Bowl after 18 years — the latest naming change for some high-profile postseason college-football bowl games in recent weeks.

More expensive naming rights are behind the musical-chair changes, according to a report in Sports Business Journal. Specifically, ESPN reportedly wants to charge about $25 million for sponsoring the top bowl games, up from $15 million to $20 million previously. ESPN is seeking six-year commitments, according to the publication.

The Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., got a new presenting sponsor last month in Northwestern Mutual. The financial/insurance giant replaces television-brand Vizio. Meanwhile, the Orange Bowl in Miami could be swapping credit-card companies as sponsors. Discover ended its relationship with the Orange Bowl about a week ago, with media reports indicating that Capital One, current sponsor of the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, will fill the void.

Whatever they're called, the Valley's bowls pack an impact in terms of ticket sales, concessions, hotel occupancies, rental cars and more. Visitors spent about $320 million in 2010-2011 at the Fiesta Bowl, the Insight Bowl and the Tostitos BCS National Championship Game, according to a study by Arizona State University's W.P. Carey School of Business. That was the most recent year that the national-championship game, which rotates among several cities, was played in Glendale.